The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
